


Moondust in your Eye

by modernlove



Category: Bob Dylan (Musician)
Genre: Angst, Drugs, Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Rock and Roll, Sex, or rather some comfort, suicide talk, wives conspicuously absent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-03
Updated: 2019-09-03
Packaged: 2020-10-06 11:02:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20505902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/modernlove/pseuds/modernlove
Summary: Desire ain’t just the name of an album.





	1. 1966

**Author's Note:**

> Ripped a lot from Robbie Robertson's Testimony, a quick glance at Levon's book, a lot of Dylan stuff that refuses to vacate my brain. Lots of happenings have been reshuffled timeline-wise, so things may seem familiar and also out of order because story, because drama. Girlfriends/Wives/most other people aren't mentioned, so pretend they're there or not there based on your needs.

The wrongness of it all was starting to pile up, it was becoming too much to avoid. And the night had a special sort of heat to it. Like dry lightning, like arcs of electricity from exploding transformers. And though every bit of it came and went from external events, Robbie felt his body start to absorb the shock.

Things went wrong in the acoustic set, Bob couldn’t tune for shit. And Robbie held out, longer and longer, every second bleeding into eternity, and the fierce uproar began.

Too soon, Robbie thought. This was supposed to be the part they liked.

Like being raised by wolves and then devoured by the same pack.

#

Later when Albert called Robbie in to help, when the hook of their nightly tune turned from “this is bad” to “dangerously bad,” Robbie felt like he was only involved because he was the closest person Albert could flag down.

Bob was out of it and Robbie was working to revive him, feeling his heart sink in his chest as he failed to find Bob’s beating at a regular rate. And somehow Albert was only concerned with a fucking meet and greet.

They pulled him into the tub and Bob pawed at the side of it in some delirious state. “No, no, it-it’s gotta be the hinges,” he mumbled.

“What?” Robbie didn’t know if he could hear him, he didn’t know what was getting through anymore.

“It’s the hinges, not the door. I gotta check the barn for another—” and he fell unconscious draped against the side of the tub.

Albert had gone back to entertaining, Robbie was left holding the bag. Stuff like this was in the Bible, the good Samaritan. He couldn’t just let someone suffer in the guise of entertainment, chalk it up as business is business. He had to do something, say something, but to who? And at the same time, this was all rock and roll, right? Rock and fucking roll. How was this different than any other night?

Robbie couldn’t stand to look at him anymore, this broken, wasted body soaking in steam, it was cutting too deep. So he walked away, just for a minute, just long enough to get the layout of it all, so he wouldn’t get sucked too far in. And when he came back Bob was at the bottom of the tub.

Instinct should have been faster than it was. With guitars he was right there, he had the power to latch onto something before someone even finished giving it out. He knew enough about structure and progression and people and sound to pull everything together. And here he was trapped, trying to piece it all out. While Bob’s air supply dwindled.

Right, he was drowning.

“Shit,” Robbie wrenched Bob out of the water and gave him a sharp pound on the back. Then another when nothing happened. Finally Bob choked on the cigarette-stained air, water sloshing out the side of the tub and spewing from his lungs. Dirty, yellowing fingernails clawing at porcelain.

He was conscious for the moment, Robbie made a mad dash to find Albert.

Early on when Bob had some idea out of nowhere to vet Robbie’s talent simply by hanging out with him at Albert’s house, Robbie sat across from him and still felt cornered when a casual, “Hey Robbie,” passed his way. 

“Yeah?” he couldn’t clear the unease, his stomach crawling toward his throat. Whatever the offer was, it wasn’t clear. The record spinning with its complex racket, the instruments around them, Bob’s presence hypnotic even when subdued.

“Quick, tell me something.” Bob lit a cigarette, his voice eaten up by shadows. “Tell me something you haven’t told anyone.”

Robbie sighed. Where to begin? “Um…” a barrage of old memories washed over him. “I shot a bird once when I was a kid, buried it, and told no one. The first time I had sex was with a married woman, and I don’t think she knew how old I was, or how young I was, I didn’t tell her. I think I like guitars more than most people, I wish I was smarter than I am, I wish more things in my life made sense like in the movies. I think I’m built to understand things through words and through song, and sometimes I can feel a tune so completely that it feels like it’s traveling through me and I’m surprised, like absolutely thrown when I find other people don’t feel the same way.”

Bob looked him over, a small smile stretched across his lips, hiding in plain sight. “Ok,” he nodded and stubbed out his cigarette, lighting another. “I get you, I trust you.”

Whatever test it was, he’d passed. But it was hard not to be a little playful with Bob. “What about me? You get everything, I get nothing? Hardly the start of a good relationship, Bobby.”

Bob’s laugh, his genuine laughter was light and infectious, embroidered on clouds and written in the wind. When it died off, Robbie could feel the room around them get more serious. He grasped onto the arm of the couch to make sure it was still there.

“I keep buying the same gun,” Bob finally said. “It’s a shotgun, I keep it under my bed for...stuff. It makes me feel safe, y’know, I have so little control. But I give it away when I think I’m gonna use it for the wrong reason. And then a week later there I am buying it again.”

“What’s the reason?” Robbie was afraid to guess, even though he felt he already knew.

“Well, what isn’t?” was what Bob could get out but anything else faded away on the trail of smoke.

Once he made it back to the bathroom after calling off all the night’s activities, Robbie found Bob back at the bottom of the tub: air gone, eyes rolled back, hair fanned out, floating underwater. It was like catching a glimpse of the most gorgeous Gorgon.

Lord help him move, he couldn’t be turned to stone or then they’d both be gone.

With a quickfire burst of strength and energy, he pulled Bob out of the tub and pounded at his chest until he heard him gasp for air again. Then Robbie wrapped him up in a towel, to get him dry but also to keep him together. He suddenly had this insane fear that pieces of Bob could fly off at any moment.

Bob had stopped his talk of muddled puzzles and homespun dreams, when Robbie looked up to see if he was still with it, he—

He had such a serene smile.

It just about shattered Robbie. That and when he picked Bob up and dropped him on the bed, he had this funny feeling he’d get when packing up and moving places. The odd labeled box. One labeled books, a medium or large box. Go to pick it up, your brain expects one thing and in the lift you realize it’s far too light. That can’t possibly be right. Bob felt disproportionate even with his small size.

Robbie left Bob in his room and he left it all alone. And he would have stuffed it down and held it deep in his bones forevermore, but the next night after the show he caught a glimpse of Bob’s glassy eyes and broken face as he stumbled toward his hotel room, stunned, uncoordinated, with shaky breaths that sounded like papier-mâché crackling, like some lost deer wandering in the woods dragging from a gunshot hours prior, not knowing it was already dead, then it became too much to hold onto. 

But how did you tell someone they’re in too deep when you were wading through the same waters?

Too late to think about it, Robbie skated in past Bob’s closing bedroom door and made his pitch.

“You almost died last night,” he said.

“Haha, yeah. What’s new?” Bob threw himself down on the bed and pinched his eyes shut.

“What’s new?” It wasn’t exactly on his list of planned responses.

“Yeah man, you’re out on that stage with me. You know what it’s like.”

“No I mean last night. You don’t remember?”

Bob cracked an eye open. Then the other. Robbie couldn’t tell if he was plain curious or there was a little fear in there as well.

Might as well hit the high notes, Robbie sighed and went into it. “Albert wanted you cleaned up. You were...you were there but you weren’t there. In your body, really. We thought a bath would help. Then when I put you in the tub, you sunk to the bottom. Not right away, but you couldn’t fight it. You were drowning and you didn’t know it. You could have died if I hadn’t pulled you out.”

“You can’t drown in a bathtub,” he was so quick with the dismissal.

“You can drown in a bathtub, if you have a head injury or if you’re severely impaired.”

“I didn’t hit my head,” he muttered.

“Right.” Robbie fingered the seams on his coat, the unconscious movement reignited last night’s memory—how he tried to unbutton Bob’s shirt, loosen his collar, asking over and over if he was okay. Back when he thought he could have helped.

Bob wasn’t going to say thank you, thanks for saving my life pal, not that Robbie wanted a thank you, he wanted to talk about what was wrong and then maybe they could get into what was really, very wrong. Surely he knew. He knew when he was sinking, didn’t have to be told.

It started as a sneer but it came out playful and shy on Bob’s sweet face. “All right, what d’ya want, a medal?”

“No, you scared me is all. Just thought I’d mention it.” He didn’t know if he should say any more on it, but the words came tumbling out before he could really vet them. “Worst part about it was afterwards seeing the smile on your conked-out face. Like you enjoyed it.”

He’d seen Bob do this with journalists. Hell, he’d seen him do it with music. How he’d decide the mood of the piece or the mood of the room and no matter what he’d push it in the direction he wanted. It was taking him a while to turn it around, but he’d do it.

“Well, next time I need to bathe, I’ll be sure to give you a ring.” Bob winked and started for the door, probably to show him out.

And Robbie was fine to leave it at that, they never had to talk about it again, and Bob went for the doorknob but his palm slid across the brass and there was a second where it looked like he was fishing in his shirt for his heart as the blood drained from his already-pale face and he dropped to the ground with all the grace of a falling star.

He was out and somehow this was scarier than the drowning. Maybe because the pattern was visible now. Robbie rushed over, scooped Bob up, and carried him back to the bed.

Parts of him working again, a marionette on half-snipped strings. Bob wheezed, “I can’t, I can’t st—”

“I’m gonna get help, okay?” Robbie nodded to reassure the both of them.

“No, no don’t help—Don’t help." Bob’s fingers brushed over Robbie’s lips, like if he could just keep him quiet, everything would be okay again. “Don’t help me,” he coughed and his eyes rolled back against his fluttering lids. 

“God, I’ve been trying to help you for months,” Robbie choked on suppressed tears. “I’ll be right back, okay?”

“Sh sh sh sh no no please—please.” Bob grabbed Robbie round the back of the neck and pulled him close.

And the kiss was so sudden Robbie hardly realized he was in it until it was almost over. And Bob was out again.

If he went now, the betrayal cut too deep. If he let it go, he was complicit. There was no in-between where he could hide.

So Robbie stayed with his ear pressed to Bob’s chest hoping that every beat and every breath stayed consistent. When things stayed even and the hours grew long, Robbie slinked back into the cold, dark night.

#

They didn’t talk about it, they didn’t talk, period. For days. Oh, maybe they said words in and around each other, but it wasn’t the same. Only the concrete subjects: stage, show, car, night.

It left him feeling like his sternum had been rubbed raw. How could you ache for a person who wasn’t lost or forgotten, but who was right next to you? Who’d hardly moved from your sight? But he couldn’t help it.

Robbie funneled it into playing guitar, songs he hardly knew, songs he knew too well. Onstage and offstage, he filled up all his time with notes. While he was playing in the common areas of their hotel suites, Bob dropped into the chair next to him and listened. He didn’t say anything until Robbie stuttered his way down some stupid bluesy riff and Robbie couldn’t remember what came next in the sequence. Maybe an A but it didn’t sound right. He tried it once more but it rang out wrong again.

Quiet elongated. He heard ice tinkling in a glass, footsteps falling down the hall, and he was sure he never felt sadder in his life.

“What is it?” Bob poked Robbie’s guitar with his foot. “Tour starting to scare you like the others?”

If only it were that easy.

“Kind of,” he said. “The tour doesn’t scare me but you on the tour…” he put the guitar aside and stared down at his hands. “It’s like seeing someone you love in the hospital. And you know this is the place that’s supposed to get them better, but with every day that goes by, things are getting worse and worse and everyone says, experts say, everything’s as it should be but you’re trapped in someone else’s world and nothing is as it should be. And the next thing you know, they’re dead and someone’s telling you in a cold, clinical voice sir could you please vacate the room.”

Bob’s eyes darted back and forth as he mulled it over. Then he said, “You love me?”

Oh Christ, how’d he grab that one? Robbie’s heart took a beating.

But nothing compelled him to back off. Something about talking with Bob one on one like this, with none of the other bullshit around, there was nothing else but the realness of the moment.

“What I feel…is complicated.” Robbie shrugged.

Bob scraped his fingers over the side of the chair and nodded a few times. It was like he was trying to find a missing chord. Then he looked back to Robbie, eyes blinking a wicked innocence over and over. “How bout I uncomplicate it for you?”

A half-suppressed giggle spilled out on Robbie’s end and the smile on his face was giving off sparks. Or maybe he was blushing. “Something tells me you’re the type folks get tangled up in, you’re not one for uncomplication.”

“Well, how do you know until you try?” that genuine smile of his was impossibly bright.

What was he asking of him? What on earth could Robbie give him? If he started, once he started, he was liable to lose everything.

“Okay,” Robbie picked up his guitar and retreated to his bedroom. “G’nite Bob.”

“Night?” Bob laughed and called to the moonlight. “What night?”

#

They’d made it far enough where the fans (and former fans) on foot stopped following and those in cabs were far behind. All they could see was night and the passing wonders of a city asleep.

“Man,” Bob held his face to the window of the car till the glass clouded up. “I wanna go home.”

Robbie didn’t have any good words, he wasn’t armed with anything that would make him feel better. Home to Robbie held an imbalance in itself. The word was ice cold filled with failure until he made it farther than he already was, the snap of his wrist bones breaking on the reservation. His mother’s voice, his father’s fist. Indian teachings on a cowboy guitar.

“I know,” he said back to him.

“You know?” Bob scoffed.

“Yeah, it’s all you ever think about.”

“Yeah?” Bob played the skeptic. “How would you know?”

Sometimes it was fun to riddle the sphinx. You’d hardly come out ahead, but it was worth it just the same.

“I’m inside your head,” Robbie answered.

Quietly, so quietly the others in the car surely missed it, Bob drew a line down Robbie’s pants with fingers that lingered and longed and said, “You’re in a lot more than there.”

#

And now this new momentum was building, and the fear remained of how long Bob could last, but also how long Robbie could outlast him. With every passing day, Visions of Johanna seemed less like a song and more like something Bobby was asking of him.

Then on a low-key (read: under ten people bouncing off the walls) night at the hotel, the city name forgotten in the blur of the tour, Bob leaned out of his room after some writing-related binge.

“Hey Robbie,” he called. “C’mere. Bring your guitar.”

Robbie did just that.

But when the door closed, Bob knocked the guitar away and pushed Robbie up against the door. A quick fumbling of the lock as he mounted Robbie, Bob’s hands tugging at his hair, teeth baring down on his neck, everything, everything else pressed up against him.

“I wanna fuck all night,” he tongued the depths of Robbie’s ear and sucked in a breath. The air and his skin were hot and tinged with sweat.

“Uh,” Robbie swallowed. Something broke down deep inside him.

He put out his hand to stop things or maybe just slow things down, but his hand slid down Bob’s silk shirt and landed in enemy territory. And he couldn’t help but feel him, feel how hard he was.

There was something enthralling in the eroticism of an erection. Not his own, Robbie had the mechanics down there. But someone else’s against you, uncovered or constrained—there was no mistaking that feeling, of what it was and what was happening. And how you factored into all of it.

Bob pressed into him and Robbie started to respond, which had Bob letting out this helpless little moan, fuck fuck fuck no, he had to—

“Wanna feel those hands of yours all over,” he breathed and bit another kiss into Robbie’s neck. “You can do whatever you want to me.”

There it was. It was like he’d just transferred that last bit of energy he had for living into lusting after Robbie. And once that was out, there would be nothing left.

“You gotta stop,” Robbie said as Bob was going for his belt. “Bob, Bobby?” he had to grab Bob’s hand and give it a squeeze. “Bob, stop.”

To his credit, he stopped immediately. He stepped away and kept shaking his head like he’d just caught himself sleepwalking and was trying to pull himself out of it.

“Sorry,” Bob scratched at the back of his head. He didn’t look at Robbie anymore. He didn’t look much at anything.

“It’s fine.” Robbie looped his belt back through his pants and straightened his shirt.

“What’s fine?” Bill said but it didn’t really seem like a question he was asking. Not to Robbie anyway.

Robbie rescued his guitar, probably got a string or two out of tune with the tumble but he wouldn’t even need to think to get that back in line. Could take less than half a minute, under four seconds easy, though no one was timing him.

“I’m gonna go. If anyone asks, I’ll…” he tried to think up a quick excuse, none were forthcoming. “I’ll—don’t worry about it.”

“The thriving, brilliant wordsmith returned to his typewriter to produce a hundred songs,” Bob theatrically crafted his own narration.

“I don’t know as I’ll use those exact words. Save me a song though, ok?”

“But that’s it, right?” Smarmy, sweet, and woefully wounded. He had a way of being and feeling everything at once.

#

That same night (day?) Bob wandered into Robbie’s room somewhere past three am. He wasn’t going to talk about it, that was a given. Bob liked to live without providing answers to people, so what was going to be different here?

“Can’t sleep, huh?” Robbie asked.

Bob faked injury to the question asked and sat down on the side of the bed. It seemed like he was about to speak, and then he got caught up feeling the raised pattern on the bedspread. His fingernails followed along the thread lines. “I’m forgetting what things are like and I’m forgetting what things I like.”

Robbie had been pacing out some unfinished lyrics, he sat down on the couch across from Bob. It was the safest choice. “You still wanna go home?”

A long pause. “I wanna go away.”

“And where’s that?”

Bob’s smile couldn’t even move partway up his lips. And Robbie knew what he was skirting. He’d hit his limit, he wanted it to end. He wanted to die. He just didn’t want to say it. Because then it was real.

“So I should have left you in that bathtub,” he offered up.

Bob responded with a weak shrug.

Robbie didn’t know when it started, it didn’t happen right away, but fairly quickly he became overprotective of Bob and didn’t know how to express it. The others saw it differently, they thought it was some sort of angle, some parasitic position. They’d never understand. “Sorry to inform you I’m always going to want to save you.”

“Cause you want something from me?” he must have been used to that by now.

Robbie told him the truth, “I want nothing from you.”

“Maybe you should,” he grumbled. There it was, that was the sting.

Bob lit a joint and disappeared into the smoke, he offered it to Robbie but he waved it off. Being in the vicinity was enough, just being near Bob had an inexplicable high in itself. And it wasn’t drug-based, he could watch it take root in those that hung around him, even those whose interactions lasted a few minutes. Creativity-loaded buckshot, one flick of a trigger and it hit everyone in the room.

It crossed into eternity before Bob spoke again, he looked at Robbie with this quiet, astonished wonder. “I keep having this dream where I see you from across a crowded room, and I’m trying to get to you, but you keep getting further and further away, and once I get to where I’m sure you are, I’m talking absolutely certain, you’re gone.”

Was it real? Maybe, Bob liked his fiction but so much of it had veins of a hard truth. Robbie followed up with his, which was a hundred percent real and haunting him on off-nights. “I have dreams where your instruments are out of tune and I can’t fix it for you.”

It was strange too, sounds he knew so well turned impossibly foreign. The rooms would stretch and the strings kept failing him and all he would see was Bob’s face waiting, waiting for him to save him.

Bob upped the ante on the dream talk. “Sometimes I think of you when I’m in bed, y’know when I’m—”

Robbie nodded so he didn’t have to finish, he felt the tingling buzz of that statement pass through him. “Can’t say I can commiserate.”

Bob looked away then a hint of a smile came over him. “Be pretty self-involved if you were also thinking of yourself like that.”

God, what did you say when someone said they jerk off to you? How do you not stop everything to run through that over and over and imagine all the finer details? He couldn’t back off, he had to go further.

“What do we do?” Robbie asked. “In those moments.”

Bob took a long drag off his joint, once released smoke curled out the side of his mouth. “Sometimes nothing, sometimes we’re touching, and your fingers run over me like you’re playing the lap steel. Sometimes you hold me close and say it’s all right, no one can hurt you now. Don’t know why I’ve got it in my head you can give me that.”

How was it that his fantasies, his wildest fantasies came down to that? Levon’s shit would have paint curling off walls, Neuwirth? Robbie didn’t even want to know. But Bob yearned for intimacy, safety, love.

“Come here,” Robbie said.

Bob visibly dodged it.

“No I mean it, come here.” it was hard to get Bob to do anything he didn’t want to do, but what people didn’t get was that it was just as hard if not more so to get him to commit to the stuff he wanted to do. “Bobby...please,” he drawled and that was the clincher.

Bob got up and sat next to him on the couch. Robbie put his arm around him and swore he could feel every bone and socket. He pulled Bob close and Robbie put his lips to Bob’s temple, kissed it, and said, “I’m here. It’s all right. No one can hurt you now. No one can hurt you ever again.”

He didn’t mean to give the words any particular sort of cadence but once he said them he felt like they’d been sealed in an envelope and he’d promised them to Bob forever.

Bob’s ribcage shook against him, attempting to circulate his tremulous breaths. He looked up into Robbie’s eyes and Bob bit his lip, like he was holding himself back from trying anything else. Then he softly said, “It’s a good lie, though, right?”

“Doesn’t have to be one,” Robbie murmured. He got closer to Bob’s mouth, his lips too enticing on their own. So close he could already taste him.

“Aw, you’re not that good and I’m not that gone, man.” Bob pulled himself away.

Maybe it was because he’d touched him, because he had that nearness and it was like coming into contact with a live wire. The danger was palpable. For just a moment, his fingers running against a hazardously thin frame, he sensed that fragility and knew it would be obscene if he didn’t say anything.

Robbie wanted to love him. In that instant he could have bed him right there but the other impulse just as strong and twice as bothersome was the desire to get him help, because Bob needed it and no one was interested in giving it to him.

Robbie tried to be casual. “Let me find you some food, something’s gotta be open, or I bet there’s something around here.”

Bob drummed his fingers against his leg. That last bit of rescued light died out in his eyes. “I’m gonna go write.”

#

Sometimes daylight seemed just as unreachable, their barely-there hours lost and spent so quickly. Hotel, show, back to hotel, next town. It was travel or it was turmoil, it wasn’t bright enough to breathe.

There was a day they got the briefest tour of the English countryside, how that came to be he couldn’t recall—they’d either gotten roped into a Garth adventure or it was some scheduled excursion or unscheduled whim. But the muted damp scenery with a welcoming chill in the air had the feel of a pastoral painting come to life.

He leaned over to tell Bob, “It’s like a breathing canvas,” and Bob said, “Mm” which most people would have taken as good enough but Robbie knew he was missing something he’d probably enjoy because he was using every ounce of energy he had left on standing upright. If he fell now, here, the jig was up.

On the train ride back Bob crawled over and rested his head on Robbie’s lap, a firm hand pressed against his inner thigh, a few fingers dangerously close to his groin. Robbie didn’t fight it. Bob went quiet and still and was probably sleeping, if he was lucky. If anyone joked about it, it didn’t get up to Robbie’s ears, not then anyway. He was busy focusing on not getting turned on by the whole situation.

Just one turn of his head and he’d have a mouthful. Would Bob have been interested in sucking dick? He didn’t seem afraid of anything when he pinned Robbie to that door.

His skill would probably be like his studio work, overzealous at times while unrehearsed. Working on his own time. His tongue performing gymnastic feats. Swallowing before being told he didn’t have to do that and laughing and making some coarse joke.

But how his hair would feel as Robbie smoothed it down, feeling the mouth of a wayward poet wrapped around him humming in its deepest octaves, those long fingernails scratching as they sought out skin to grip.

Everything buzzed with an orange warmth and if any part of him stirred outside of an electric whimper and a cold sweat, Bob didn’t react. Robbie shut it out before the scene got too advanced and moved on. Nothing happened.

Then later onstage there was a look he gave Robbie from over the piano, after someone rushed the stage and was dragged off. This look that was asking for something, but Robbie didn’t know what to give him. So he hooked his thumb backstage and mouthed “You wanna go?” and Bob gave him a sad smile that slipped off the second he noodled through another vamp and the heckling raged on.

Then in the middle of the night when he was writing Robbie came up behind him, he didn’t want to scare him so he gave him a quick “hey” and brush on his shoulder and Bob took hold of his hand and held it and gave it a squeeze and almost, almost put his lips against Robbie’s palm but stopped himself and dragged his body back into the clutches of the typewriter.

“Anything I can help with?” Robbie offered.

He was listening, he was listening intently, but he didn’t answer. The typewriter’s keys pounded louder.

#

The good thing about theaters were some of them were so old, they had these pockets of space. Easy to disappear, easy to hide. But not for Bob, so many people made it their jobs to keep tabs on him.

The door was locked and Robbie was elected to get him out. Stress was at toxic levels, everyone was feeling it.

Robbie tapped on the door.

“I told you Albert five minutes I just need—”

“It’s Robbie, you wanna let me in? We can lock the door again, I do not mind.”

Silence, then the door unlocked. “All right hurry up.” Bob pulled him inside. “Everyone’s on my ass, I need some time and space to process.”

The night had been truly insane and they hadn’t even gotten to the main course. What was strangest was how so many chose to take it in as the new normal. At least Levon knew things were wrong and got out. Robbie had started to imagine a version of events where Robbie could escape in a similar fashion and take Bob with him.

The islands, Jamaica, Hawaii, somewhere warm and safe and far from the clearly maddening crowd. How would Bob look wrapped in a sunbeam, drenched in surf and sand? Robbie’s hands clinging to Bob's perfect, tanned skin. Okay, maybe Bob’s tan was a bit of a stretch.

Instead they were dealing with drugs and drink and onstage assaults and death creeping in the doorway and Bob beckoning it further in.

“I don’t think it matters one way or the other,” Bob said and raw nerves rattled through his tired throat.

Robbie nodded, he knew what he was talking about. “Death threats are scary. Real or fake or some combination of the two.”

Bob thumbed his lips. “I was scared.”

“Well sure, anybody would be. Lotta big targets going down these days.”

Bob pulled his sunglasses off. “I was scared cause it…it took a few seconds.” A long sigh. “And I realized I was completely okay with that happening. Maybe I want it to.”

“Oh,” he didn’t know what to say, it was so direct. Head-on collision.

Bob huffed a quick, dry laugh to himself.

“If there’s any room for input, I am completely not okay with that happening.” Robbie slowly came up beside him.

“Okay,” Bob gave Robbie’s chest a push, ready to send him back out of the room.

And Robbie latched onto Bob’s arm and pulled him into a close hug, he fought it hard.

“Don’t mess with me,” Bob warned.

“I’m not messing,” Robbie stroked the sharp lines of Bob’s jaw.

An ever-so-slight tilt where he leaned into the touch, “I’m not looking for pity.”

He wouldn’t let go, he waited for Bob to relax. “Shh, I’ve got you. You’re safe. No one’s gonna hurt you, Bobby. Not even you.”

Bob looked up into Robbie’s eyes and smiled with a bit of wariness still stirring. “Don’t use my words against me now.”

“They’re all my words, you gave them to me.” Robbie tightened his hold on him. “Here’s some that are just mine,” he let each get a hit in. “I love your eyes, I love your smile. I love your voice, I love the way you fight. I love these moments when it’s just us. Hey,” he’d pitch him the impossible. “I’ve been thinking you and I could run away, just the two of us. Go off where they’d never find us, someplace exotic. Someplace unknown.”

It should have made him feel better, but Robbie watched as a piece of Bob’s heart appeared to break away. He cleared his throat. “My dream had it wrong,” he said. “I was getting closer, you were farther away. When really I get closer, you get closer, and we still end up miles apart.”

Robbie leaned down and kissed him. It was like licking a battery, the dull shock of electricity failing, the sour taste—adrenaline sputtering. But attempting to come back to life.

Robbie pet Bob’s hair down and caught a glimmer of hope in his eyes. “Come to my room after this show is done, okay? Come to my room and I’ll try to close the gap.”

Bob put his sunglasses back on and with that move he instantly snapped back into himself. “Word of advice, when I get down there and you get down there, don’t go looking for my gap, cause I ain’t got one.”

He smirked and headed out of the room.

#

Bob made sure everyone had been sent away for the night. He was terribly shy knocking on the door, coming in with a sheepish grin and a locked stare toward the floor.

Robbie stayed on the bed and tried to make conversation. “So you can screw all night with those pills, huh?”

“Sorry to disappoint, I haven’t had anything since the show. I’m a pedestrian screw.” he added with a flourish. Then he crawled onto the bed and stretched out next to him. “What’s your real name again?”

God, who had asked before him that he didn’t already consider family? Who had cared? “Jaime,” saying it out loud gave immediate echoes of the past. Of his whole life that existed far and away from this place. “The I and the M are reversed from the normal spelling, but you say it the same.”

Bob took it as a serious note, filed it far back in his brain. “Can I call you that?”

“Sure. What’s your real name?”

“It’s still Bob,” he cracked a smile that he hid. “I mean there’s a different last name but that hardly factors in on this or anything really.”

“You wanna know how much I care for you?” he laced his fingers through Bob’s.

Bob squeezed Robbie’s hand. “Half.”

He wasn’t even going to try deciphering. “Huh?”

“Half as much as I for you,” Bob pulled their entwined hands up to his mouth and kissed along Robbie’s knuckles.

Robbie said, “I’ve spent the last few hours thinking only of you.”

Not a lie, he tried to prepare himself what he’d be like in bed, cobbled from evidence around him. Any girl he wanted, the new ones, the reliable ones too. It never occurred to him that men weren’t in his regular lineup, that Robbie was different.

It was probably raucous, he decided. Wild and messy, wine staining Bob’s lips and the sheets, his roaming hands curious, lingering in the soft, hard, and wet places, the way he’d pump his body—smooth and then tight like a whip crack. He’d have honeys screaming out for more.

He probably had a mouth on him. Enough muffled encounters passed through thin hotel walls. His raw hunger for love knew no bounds and the way he kissed had to be divine. He’d heard enough voices come out of Bob, he wanted the private selection. The thrills, the whimpers and moans, the sounds he’d make right when the hunger coiled in his stomach and he was about to come.

“Same,” Bob said. “Except it’s been months.”

“Try years.”

“Years, you liar. You didn’t know who I was like a few months ago.” his laugh brought him back around. He lit up and new life immediately shot into him. “You lying liar, you shut up.” he pushed Robbie’s shoulder.

“Make me,” Robbie countered.

And Bob pulled him close, and kissed him like he was plumbing the depths of some foreign ocean. Robbie couldn’t help but fall with him, straight overboard.

There was something about touching Bob in this manner that reminded Robbie of being in a museum after dark and the lights went out in the exhibits. Where no one could see the trouble you were about to make, but no matter what happened, everything had its place. You wanted to get it all back together, the way it was before.

That Bob was so delicate, Robbie would never tell him that. The way he squirmed against his hold and still molded himself to it, wanting to feel all the more controlled, Robbie thought there was a good chance he could crack a rib if they weren’t careful.

His smell like lingering Fourth of July smoke. Exploded firecrackers lost to the wind. His skin painted with the scent.

Robbie moved down and grabbed the shards of Bob’s hips. He opened his mouth and enveloped Bob’s cock, hard and dripping as it longed for touch.

“Oh g—” Bob pushed up into him and smothered his sounds with a fist to his mouth. He fell back to the sea of pillows and sheets.

Robbie knew he was doing well when he could feel Bob’s fingers tugging their way through his hair. His toes flicking and curling against the bed. Hearing his sounds of raw passion strangled through clenched teeth.

Then when he picked up speed and was certain it wasn’t long now, then suddenly everything fell into soft focus. Bob stopped responding, his grip no longer tight. 

Robbie freed up his mouth. “Bob?” he called up.

Then he heard a light snore.

He couldn’t help but laugh and he repackaged Bob into some of his former wardrobe and tucked him into bed. He stayed beside him, but clutched the pillow instead.

A few hours later Bob woke up.

“What happened?” he rubbed his eyes like a sick kid home from school.

“You fell asleep.”

His frown got lost in a yawn. “I did?”

Robbie nodded. “I would have warned you then but I had my mouth full.”

He groaned, “That’s just my luck.”

“It’s my luck too.” Whether it was good or bad luck on Robbie’s end, he wasn’t sure. Something about it was like being called on for a solo in the early days, when he didn’t have a lick ready and had no idea where to wail. But with Bob he wanted it to work out for him. He wanted something to reach through that hollow center. Too much was hollow these days.

Bob started to put on the rest of his clothes, his body trembling, cold, and pale. “Just as well, I guess. Building it up in my head. Nothing could live up to that.”

“Could always try again,” Robbie offered.

Silence. He wasn’t interested. Or he was all too interested and was actively stopping himself.

Bob lit a cigarette and offered a light to Robbie, he shook his head. Bob stood there for a while smoking and figuring out his next move. Chessboard was emptying out, too many squares, not enough pieces.

“Come back to bed,” Robbie tried a different tactic. “We don’t have to do anything, you can just stay here and sleep here and work on coming back to earth.”

“Where was I before?” he sounded so confused. It reminded Robbie of some line from a time and a half ago, Bob had been talking Ibsen with the intellectuals and Robbie studied up a few days later in a desperate fervor, finding in Peer Gynt: “Where was I, as myself, as the whole man, the true man?” Too much of Bob inked on other people’s pages.

“I think,” Robbie started again. “I think you’ve been flying in space for so long you’re not sure how to get back.”

“I thought this was it,” he said it gruffly, but his voice could have been covering for some deeper trapped, tearful emotions.

“You know,” Robbie said. “I think this tour’s going to kill us in different ways than we thought.”

Bob tapped his cigarette in the crowded hotel ashtray with a solemn sort of stare. “It already did.”

And with that he let him go. Sure Robbie let him leave the room but it was Bob who detached from Robbie, catch and release style.

It was just like how it was in music. Like sometimes Robbie would teach Bob a song and he’d practice and practice at it until he had it down, until his fingers moved like high powered pistons, his voice unstoppable, the song sailing amongst the stars, and other times if it was too difficult, he’d let it go. He didn’t want to, there were songs he loved but couldn’t master and he had to let it go.

And Robbie was out with the rest of them which wasn’t a bad place to be but it also meant Bob had cast off the last of his inner circle. And there wasn’t anything or anyone to keep him together anymore.

By the end Bob was so far adrift, he barely answered to his own name. And when he looked at Robbie it was like he couldn’t remember his. Songs faded, words out of reach. Folks no longer feared the impact when the flying object broke up in orbit.

And as Bob was placed inside a vehicle on the first step in the journey towards home, Robbie thought he didn’t need the pack of wolves to devour him, he’d done it to himself first.


	2. Late 1966

When Robbie first heard about the accident he thought Bob was dead. He’d stopped listening after accident because that word had such a fucking halo around it. That was it, Robbie thought.

He got what he wanted, didn’t take him that long. It was all over now.

But no he was there and he was alive and everything stopped which was maybe what Bob wanted, though who could tell you what that was? Not even Bob.

When he talked to him on the phone it was like they were both working to convince themselves that things were ok but somehow it sounded a half-step out of tune and two measures behind where they needed to be.

Once he hung up he decided it went well, really well, he’d tell all the guys he sounds like he always does. They’d feel fine and so would he.

Then Robbie realized he had sweat straight through his shirt and and the lie started to crumble. He took a shower afterwards and focused any stray thought he had into the grout.

Or was that just some furious funereal fucking? Cheat death, jerk off, rinse, repeat.

Accident, he chose to use that phrasing. Because in all their time together and it wasn’t much, it seemed like chaos happened around Bob but he was in the eye of it. He wouldn’t let hurt in unless his guard was down or he asked for the infiltration. And he was tired from the tour so maybe his guard was down.

But goddamn, it was hard to believe he did anything without an express intention. The way he played, sang, wrote—effortless but intentional. Even when the guy was taking a sip of water, he had intent.

So there was likely some orchestration involved, but Robbie (and Bob probably, he guessed) made the determined choice to shut that thinking down.

Then he went out there.

At first Bob just looked busted. Hidden under layers of medical tape and a new cage to trap him in. Trying his best but still running a beat behind others mentally, when normally he was three beats ahead and on an entirely different tune. Scars and scrapes partly visible on the skin, he said he was still picking gravel out of his ass. He said he didn’t remember anything, which was one of those lies to make others feel better.

Robbie waited for him to come back around to himself.

But then Bob’s face, his person, his glasses took on a look that was different than the tour. And even from before that. He’d adapted to the surroundings like a gecko, like one of those dragons they kept in zoos. He no longer looked like a Rock Star. He looked like someone you’d catch barefoot in a stream fishing for trout. Quiet, introspective, aloof.

It wasn’t until the neck brace came off where Robbie felt comfortable hanging in the same room with him. It was fine in a group where both of them could hide amongst the noise. He could meet him again and learn the group dynamics, the both of them disguising any efforts to please the other. But Bob wouldn’t share a thing outside the pain level and Robbie wondered how much he had locked up.

The first moment where he really felt like they were back in it together again was when Bob was driving him around.

The windows rolled down, wind buffeting their clothes. Bob giving this dreamy tour of a town that seemed straight out of some dime store fifties sci-fi tale. A town perfectly normal in every way until the aliens descend. And rock and roll was alienating, they knew that all too well.

Bob pulled a cigarette out of a nearly-empty carton with his teeth, Robbie held out a light for him. The flash of a smile through clenched teeth.

“This is some town you got here,” Robbie stretched his hand out the window and felt along the waves of air. “I’d come visit more if I had some wheels.”

“I’ll give you my station wagon for a buck and a kiss,” Bob grinned. “Ok, a buck.”

His amendment was too quick, he didn’t give Robbie a chance to answer. He’d convinced himself the answer to anything he asked of him would be no. And Robbie felt he was on shaky ground if he tried anything that was too out there. After all, he was still recovering, wasn’t he?

That was what he told himself.

Bob learned to make himself scarce in Woodstock and West Saugerties. He’d come around for a little bit, start one thing, seem like he was enjoying it, and disappear. A one song set. Cut out from all the happenings.

Then Robbie caught him with crumpled empty napkins and a silent typewriter and understood. He couldn’t produce, not like before.

#

Bob was walking around his estate with Robbie, doing his what needs fixed tour. He was caught up playing with the squeak on a door, wouldn’t that sound great on a record he asked, and Robbie shivered when he remembered Bob’s nonsense talk from the tub that night. What door was he talking about, what hinges, was it all a dream?

He should have asked about that. But some other older story came bleeding in on the back of it, coming forth from that night’s chorus, “You okay man, you ok?” as he slapped the side of Bob’s face and pulled open his shirt.

“Hey, you think this is level? I feel like it is but I can’t tell.” Bob knocked his fist against a bookcase that contained an absurd array of genres. “Gotta get me one of those measure thingies. What is that? Shit, it’s called a level, isn’t it?”

“I think it’s fine.” Robbie said without really looking, as he checked out the rest of the room. “You got that shotgun of yours still?”

“Are we in the country?” he scoffed.

If he undersold it, maybe he’d make it through. “I thought maybe I could borrow it for a while, but just borrow it, you know?”

Bob looked over at him, realization dawned quickly.

Robbie powered through. “That way I could give it back later and you wouldn’t feel compelled to go buy another.”

Bob’s face fell into a deadly stare. What was easily discussed before was now clearly off-limits.

“You should go,” he said and turned and stomped up the stairs before anything else could be said. So many of his moves were like an under-rehearsed actor failing to remember their blocking until they were halfway through the motion.

Maybe the darkness was too close, maybe all Bob could do to fend it off was avoid it entirely. Another thing Robbie would have to monitor from afar. If he could even get that close.

Then there was a huge crash upstairs and Robbie ran up to see what happened. He found Bob brushing off his clothes and a pile of junk falling out of the hallway closet. He seemed dazed, caught in his own layer of fog.

“You ok?”

“A shelf came off, I was—” he shook his head. “That sound.”

Robbie figured it out. “It reminded you of the accident.”

“Dumb right?” Bob wiped his nose on his sleeve and sniffed. “Dumb.”

“Are you on anything?” he had to ask.

Bob took it like he was hitting him up for stuff. “I got some pain pills for this but I really can’t share…”

“No I mean are you off all the other stuff?”

“Yeah, accident knocked me clean. I can sleep, I can shit, I can eat. Can’t look all the way to the left anymore, but what can you do?” he thought that was funny, and his laugh seemed almost uncontrollable but then it quickly faded away. “Hey, uh…” he touched a section of the wall. “Does food ever scare you?”

Seemed like one of his easier verbal puzzles, but Robbie still couldn’t crack it. “Depends on who’s cooking it.”

“Forget it,” Bob waved him off and passed him in the hallway.

He should have been able to understand, but maybe he was one more thing Bob lost in the accident. He wasn’t in his head anymore.

Robbie had to chase him down the stairs. “Hey, we were probably gonna try to put something together to record tonight if you wanted to swing by.”

“Uh…” Bob scuffed his feet along the floor. “Yeah, maybe.”

“You ok?” he called after him. That got him to turn around.

Bob went to push him away but he was just out of reach. “I don’t like being this far away.”

“From the world?”

“From you.”

Oh, now they were going to talk about it. Or talk around it. “I’m right here.”

“Are you?” he moved to a different room and glued himself to the keys of an old piano.

Robbie’s heart rammed against the side of his ribs. “Yeah I fell in love, I moved here. If you stayed in one place long enough, maybe you’d see that.”

Bob played a chord on the piano. “Maybe I’m afraid to.”

#

He would hear about Bob through other people, or he was seeking out background intel on purpose. Depending on the day, one or both of those were true. Rick said he found him in front of a fridge zoned out, could have been there for half an hour but still took nothing. Total space cadet. Richard said one night after Bob begged off songwriting to go someplace, he caught him not too long after, car idling in the driveway, face pressed down against the steering wheel. Like he wanted to leave but didn’t know how to go.

When Levon came back, Robbie took his temperature on it as an outsider and Levon said he seemed all right, strange, but all right. Wasn’t he always a bit strange? And really you wanna talk strange who isn’t round here, with a pointed look toward Garth.

Garth maybe understood too well, because he said, “There’s nothing we can do to help him right now. We can try, and he can know we’re here for him, but this is something he’s gotta do himself,” and he’d have talked to him more on the subject but Garth fell asleep standing up and Robbie tentatively took off.

Sometimes in the middle of the night Robbie took the phone off the hook and thought about dialing. Thought about what Bob would say when he picked up the phone. If he just timed it right, he’d get the real conversation. But he always hung it back up, he didn’t even get the first number out.

Part of Bob’s skill of short visits meant he was always out the door at mealtime, dogs wanted a walk, he had to have a meeting, tracks needed a listen to, he had to drive into town to get something, what something, it didn’t matter. And when Levon called him in it, in jest of course, Bob confessed to the whole room he just didn’t like eating in front of people and disappeared into the night.

“He means,” Richard corrected. “He doesn’t like eating with us.”

“Hey,” Robbie started and he felt the words line up but he didn’t let them out. “That tour fucked him up, okay? I don’t know if he’s ever going to get over it.” but instead he said, “I don’t like eating with you guys either.”

And they all laughed, but all Robbie could think of was how you could still hear the thunder after a storm was moving away, even from a long way off.

#

They’d been wandering in the woods just to get away and think. And smoke. Bob would come across a twig, snap a bit of it in his hands and throw it further into the woods. When he came across the same one again, he’d leave it alone.

Songwriting was in the air, craft was all around them and it seemed like anyone who had the itch to reach out could grab a tune that had some worth.

But ever since the accident more than Bob’s body was mangled. More than he wanted to admit to.

It was such a peaceful setting, Robbie hadn’t realized they’d been spending this time in silence until Bob finally spoke.

“I was thinking about Willams,” he said.

“Paul? Andy? Roger.” Robbie guessed.

It was like he didn’t hear him, Bob kept going. “William Carlos and a line that goes:

‘You lethargic, waiting upon me,  
waiting for the fire and I  
attendant upon you, shaken by your beauty

Shaken by your beauty  
Shaken.’”

It was like the ground had dropped out under their feet and his insides started to twist. Bob wouldn’t look over after speaking the poem directly to him, Robbie was being ripped apart with the sudden impact of what was spoken and how true it felt. “Is that about me or you, and in what order?”

“Perhaps it’s about no one at all.” Bob scuffed out his cigarette. “What are poems anyway but—"

And Robbie cut him off, pushing him into the bark on the closest tree and nailing him there with a powerful kiss to his lips.

Then Robbie stopped and watched. For a moment Bob hyperventilated. Like he’d forgotten something like this had happened before. Or he was afraid he wouldn’t live up to his past self.

What Robbie thought, not that he’d say it, was that somehow Bob had tied their prior actions into the trauma of the accident. And that was part of the distance. Or maybe that was Robbie’s sense of himself, because wasn’t he just as distant?

Robbie unbuttoned Bob’s shirt, exposing soft flesh. Used to be bones and sandpaper. Robbie pressed his hand on the gentle curve of Bob’s stomach. Bob quivered at the touch.

“Aw don’t,” he started and his voice caught in his throat. “Don’t say anything.”

If he loved him, if he loved him hard enough, he thought he could help him rediscover his worth. How could it be that an accident could revive Bob and rob him of the one thing he held dear?

“You’re so beautiful,” he kissed Bob’s collarbone and sunk his teeth into the meat of his shoulder.

Bob hissed from the touch, from the cold in the woods, from his words. “Don’t you mean handsome?”

“I’ll give you some hand, you can call it what you like.” Robbie unbuckled Bob’s belt and made it through the buttons of his jeans.

Bob’s body was quick to respond. “God, I shouldn’t,” he hid his face.

“Shouldn’t what?” Bob’s cock was hard against the length of Robbie’s palm. Robbie spit down onto it.

“Be such an easy lay,” he let go of his face and gripped the tree bark helplessly.

“Maybe it’s easy when it’s right,” Robbie started to stroke him.

“Nothing’s right with me,” Bob mumbled.

He built up a rhythm and watched Bob’s face, eyes closed, breathing through his nose. This was the show that so few saw. Nothing so exposed, so vulnerable.

And when Robbie thought about Bob, it wasn’t what he’d pictured. There was strength, fire, electricity. This was giving a handjob to the lonely guy at the corner store.

He knew he was down in there somewhere, and it wasn’t just the tree bark digging in or the vulnerable outdoor element that made Bob’s comfort level drive into the negative.

Every touch was alarming, he could touch Robbie but wouldn’t look his way and every time Robbie stroked Bob’s chest, ran his hand along the tender and soft skin poured into Bob’s beltline, the whimper that broke loose was terrified and aroused.

If he could just get him there, the other would come back he was sure of it.

“You like this?” he was compelled to ask.

A quick nod and a strangled, “Mm.”

“I want you to come for me,” he growled and licked along Bob’s neck, nervous sweat sour and sharp.

“Jesus, please.” he was already gone, he was outside his body. Robbie could get him there.

“You gonna come for me, Bobby?” he pushed against him, he made him look.

“I can’t-I’m gonna-” his hips bucked. “Jaime I—”

There it was, he sped up the rhythm. “You can come for me, come for me Bobby.” 

And he did with a gasp and a strained smile, spilling out on Robbie’s hand and the ground beneath him.

Bob clutched his open shirt closed and waved his free hand Robbie’s way. “What, uh, what can I do for you?”

“Nothing,” Robbie shrugged.

“Nothing,” he tasted the word with some foul amusement.

Bob fumbled to clothe himself again, Robbie kicked dirt and leaves over any outdoor evidence.

“Gosh recite some poetry to me, look what happens.” Robbie joked.

A sad far-off look came over Bob. “You are poetry to me.”

And he wandered away in the woods before Robbie could get anything else out of him.

Robbie stopped by not too long after to check on him, but all the doors were locked. But he found Bob in the garden with a guitar within reach and a pad of paper he was furiously scribbling upon so he let him be.

#

A few weeks back Bob brought by a painting and Robbie threatened to use it for their album cover. He hadn’t seen him since.

Then it rained for three or four days straight and everything turned to mud. And in the evenings the rain pounded at the windows, it was a full-on assault. It was hard enough to hear yourself think, let alone play.

Bob came through the back door, only slightly damp from the weather. “Where is everybody?”

“Weather bummed them out. Everybody took off for a couple of days.”

“But not you, huh.”

“Weather doesn’t really affect me.”

“Not much does,” it was some skill of Bob’s to reach the heart of things in one stab. More of a weakness that he’d instantly back off it unless pressed to stay there, maybe that was why some songs of his turned out so long.

He’d hit him quick before he ducked the question. “What are you looking for, Bob?”

“I been thinking about this,” Bob pointed to the painting. “I been thinking maybe I’m the elephant in the picture.”

“Sorry?”

“Y’know you don’t need me around, you got your band and your sound and it’s real good.” his smile faltered. “And I’m this big fat thing getting in your way.”

“Is that really how you see yourself?” he tried to understand. “Some enormous elephant?”

Bob wouldn’t meet the question head on. He started to clean his glasses with the side of his shirt.

“Bob?” he raised his voice.

His internal timer ran out. “All right, I’m gonna go.”

“Come here,” Robbie held out his hand. 

Bob looked terrified. This was a man who faced hellfire without so much as a blink. Who was so unafraid of death he almost let it kill him. He didn’t want to take a few steps toward affection. Maybe he thought it wouldn’t be there once he’d moved.

“I mean it, Bobby, come here,” Robbie attempted to coax him over with a pat on his legs. Like he was calling a dog.

Bob moved that direction and got one knee up on the couch and he froze. He said, “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Believe me when I say that could never happen.” Robbie helped him onto the couch and onto his lap, making it so that Bob straddled him on the couch, Robbie tugging on the back pockets of Bob’s jeans. Pulling him closer, until they were right up against each other. Until he couldn’t ignore what was in front of him.

“Look at me,” he stroked Bob’s cheek, feeling some forgotten layer of stubble. “No really look.” Robbie guided Bob’s face to his. “You better listen too.”

Bob swallowed down any escaping emotions and worked to stay perfectly still.

“I want you around, we all want you around. There’s never going to be a time when that isn’t true.” Robbie kissed him and pulled away. Bob touched his lips like he was trying to tell if it really happened.

“And you’re not the elephant.” Robbie added. “If anything you’re the guy holding the piano guy or maybe you’re the pot on the guy’s head.”

“Cause I like pot?” his smile had the hint of a grimace.

“Cause you really like pot,” he tucked a curl back behind Bob’s ear.

He was starting to get hard with Bob on top of him like this, so he leaned into it and held Bob’s sides and whispered, “You feel how much I want you?”

A courteous, almost ashamed nod.

Robbie reached out and felt along Bob’s growing erection. “I can feel how much you want me.”

Bob struggled to breathe, Robbie kissed him just to feed him air. Bob came out of it remembering the basics but forgetting where he was in his own body. He kept fingering his necklace and the dent between his collarbones.

Robbie pushed up, Bob rocked against him. “You can ride me just like this, wanna feel your cock against mine.”

Bob didn’t say anything in return but he melted into the arrangement, both of them slick under constrained fabric, growing hardness almost unbearable in all the layers. The way he’d grind his hips into Robbie, with an animalistic desperation, how he dragged his cock around and across Robbie’s in some haze-inducing swirl, the sounds trapped deep down in his throat he was too afraid to let escape.

Some cavernous thing opened up in the both of them and it was like he could feel them traveling to another world inside each other. He needed to be inside Bob and feel what it’d be like to be a part of one another. To hear the moan of absolute pleasure ring across his skin.

That would take some convincing but he could start somewhere. What Bob tasted like, what he felt like, what love was needed most of all.

“Just the thought of you gets me hard,” he pulled him across the couch until Robbie was laying down and Bob was on top of him and they ground against each other in some clockwork display.

He sat up on his elbows just to watch him. This was uninhibited, this was free. He could catch in the flickering shadows the Bob he knew him to be.

Robbie needed more, he fought through buttons and a zipper and freed Bob’s dripping cock and blew a gentle breeze down upon it.

“Oh,” Bob finally voiced his strangled desires. “Oh I—"

“I bet I can make you come just like this,” he filtered another hot breath down Bob’s front and gave him a quick stroke. Bob shuddered. Robbie pulled Bob close, bit his earlobe and breathed. “Or should I suck your fat cock and feel you all down the back of my throat?”

“I—” Bob stumbled to get off of him, trying to collect himself but forgetting how buttons and zippers worked. “I have to go, I can’t, I can’t—”

“Okay.”

“We can’t do this, I can’t do this.” he got the fabric of his jeans to meet but couldn’t get the button through. “Shit, shit!” he left it open and took ragged breaths through his clasped hands.

He headed back for the door, ready to escape in the pouring rain.

Robbie called after him. “You know I’m gonna love you, no matter what, right? No matter what type of music you’re playing or what your voice sounds like or what you look like, I’m gonna love you just the same.”

“Well, cut it out,” Bob yelled.

“Why?” Robbie matched his tone. “Cause it’s easier for you if you think no one cares?”

“Cause you shouldn’t bet on a losing hand,” he stuttered out. “I’m trying to be better now, but it’s making me feel worse. Some days I’m fine and some days I wish that crash did kill me and darkness swallowed me up, so I didn’t have to be here and afraid of—of pens and pages, of nightmares, of mirrors, the typewriter bell, of hunger, Robbie, and,” he gave a tug on his jeans. “My fucking clothes. You shouldn’t have to...witness this. Go out. Go find someone else who isn’t like me.”

Robbie got the feeling the list went on a lot longer than that, and that he hadn’t voiced any of it up until now. Quietly, Robbie said, “No one’s like you, Bob.”

The sound that Bob made before he left was so devastating. It was like he’d held his soul up to a direct flame and watched the last bit of it incinerate.

After he left the rain let up, and you could finally see all that had washed away. And the things that were never coming back.


	3. 1976

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last chapter, here we go!

How much of The Band would remain when they weren’t defining themselves by the ravages of the road? Or by other artists? And what would remain of Robbie? So much of him seemed built up from all that was around him.

Everyone was milling around, trying to get a sense of things before it happened. It was like homecoming week at the world's weirdest school. Bob showed up in a ratty T-shirt and jeans, some aviators and a baseball cap, doing his incognito routine. He serpentined about forty people who either knew him or knew of him and barely gave him a glance.

When they finally connected, Robbie asked. “That what you’re wearing, huh?”

Bob pulled the glasses down and rolled his eyes. “I’ll change later, just wanted to see what was going on.”

Bob was thin, not dangerously so but it was enough that it gave Robbie pause. Robbie didn’t look up from his guitar. “Gonna be a long night, you eat already?”

“Yeah I had something earlier.” Bob blew on his hands to keep them warm, though he seemed to be sweating along with everyone else.

“Yeah?” Robbie took a step closer to him. “What was it?”

A sarcastic smirk passed Bob’s lips. “You know you’re the only person around who asks me that?”

“I know I’m only asking because I care,” he went back to fake tuning the guitar, giving Bob enough space so that if he wanted to talk, he had the floor.

Bob watched him for a bit, watched Robbie’s hands as he went from tuning to riffing. He was just messing around but started to put a little flair in it. Bob took a shuffling step forward and in that moment Robbie could have sworn Bob was going to take Robbie’s hand off the fretboard and press it to his face. Finally give himself over. Finally ask for help.

But he stepped back and acted like there was something under his nails that needed examining.

“You good?” Robbie followed up.

“Yeah, I’m all right,” Bob played with the hair on the back of his head. “So I’ll see you later.”

He disappeared into the crowd and didn’t look back for any reaction or response.

#

There was so much going on, nonstop activity, antics and drama around every corner. Robbie should have been used to this level of labor, the mounting tasks, the split focus—like coming straight out of a studio session, but he was feeling the exhaustive grind and at the same time he was filled with joy, terror, wild abandon, and some looming disconnected fear of failure.

Somehow he was reminded of Levon’s tale from ages back of how a tornado picked up his parents and carried them away, and though the tornado dropped them off, they were never the same after that. The Band was getting ripped through that tornado now, and Robbie didn’t know where they’d get dropped off, and though he didn’t want to admit it, he knew they weren’t going to be the same either.

When he did have the time and wherewithal to pick his head up and get a breath of the world around him, he couldn’t help but search and zero in on Bob. For the most part Bob played the low-key standoffish version of himself. Smiling, laughing when he was engaged; distant, sequestered, absently listening otherwise. Waiting like the others, but how he waited wasn’t the same. Maybe because he was waiting for something different. Maybe because he himself was different.

Backstage Robbie was lucky enough to have one sliver of a moment alone with Bob. Without even noticing the approach, Robbie got close enough to slide his hand over Bob’s ass. Just admiring, already thinking about what it’d be like out of those jeans, up against Robbie. Pulling him close, a harsh slap on bare skin. 

Bob gave him the “You’ve made a mistake, but I’m willing to overlook it” side-eye.

Robbie went to move his hand down the back of Bob’s jeans, seeing what he could get a handful of and managed one gentle caress with his thumb.

Bob backed out and away from him, “Don’t start.”

It wasn’t playful, it wasn’t inviting, it was a plain request.

“What do you mean, don’t start?” Robbie wasn’t going to let him go, he advanced with his hands in the air to show him no sudden moves would occur.

Bob kept his voice so close to a whisper he was practically mouthing the words, his voice shot in the syllables. “As in don’t start something you can’t finish.”

Robbie had misread him. This wasn’t a plain request, it was a desperate plead. They’d been skirting each other for years, aware or unaware that to come back around on this meant there was an instant breaking point.

“Oh,” Robbie brought his voice down low but for a different purpose. That silky seductive register he’d stolen from the only sex ed he had, early days with Ronnie and the Hawks. “I intend to finish. In fact, I’ll let us both finish.”

Bob gave him a sickly smile. Surely he’d have something just as witty to throw back.

Instead he said, “Sometimes I think what would have happened if I didn’t fall asleep that night on the tour. For so long it’s been this icicle threaded through my heart the thaw can’t reach. I think what things would be different, where would we be, would we have been happy?”

“It’s never too late,” Robbie said.

Bob snorted and brushed past him. “It’s always too late.”

#

When they were up and running once again in what felt like some Guinness record trick, aiming for the longest music marathon, or maybe just the most exhausting, Robbie started to feel that jolt of anticipation. 

All of these artists were special, one of a kind, a sheer delight, musical geniuses but this…

Seeing Bob walk out on that stage with them was like witnessing some act of time travel. His wardrobe, his frame, his fucking attitude, the elated sense of joy, his choice of songs—true to Bob, he played only what he wanted to play. 

Hazel, for example, they all made fun of the ardent request. Like he’d just flipped through his phone book-sized song catalogue and stuck out his finger. Or he was making some odd statement about agreeing but not really agreeing to be filmed.

But when Hazel rang out, Robbie couldn’t help but hear it differently. From the first note something was startling, working down into his bones, and he barely had the time to figure out what it was.

The fuck would he insist on that song? The crowd wasn’t expecting it, Marty wasn’t going to record it, and from the visible reaction around them it really seemed like Bob was pulling it from the bottom of his tattered magician’s hat for an audience of none. 

And though he was busy driving it down into the guitar Robbie had one solid moment when he finally realized the why of it all.

Every fucking lyric was being done for him, about him. Slipping completely under the radar like he always did, Bobby was singing that number straight through to Robbie.

Had those words always been that way, sounded that strong, or was it how he was burning them tonight for a sole, soulful purpose?

Robbie had to file it away and play the gig, their gig, the little there was left—but he knew he wasn’t going to forget the request. A little touch of your love.

#

The madhouse continued after, no one wanted to go anywhere. They were gonna stay till the night drained out and the walls blew apart.

Somehow Robbie stole away to a back dressing room in the hopes of taking a shower. Before he got there though he heard the door slide open and close again.

Bob stuck his hat on the back of the door and sat up on the makeup counter, his legs dangled in the air.

“That was like nothing I’ve ever seen before,” Bob chewed on his thumbnail and smiled around it. “Never been part of something like that neither.”

For all that Bob had done for them all, it was impossible to think of this night absent him. “I’m glad you made it, I wouldn’t want to do this without you.”

“I always wanted to be here,” Bob said quietly, and both of them understood how that was hardly about the event at all. 

Songs and adrenaline and reverb were still passing through Robbie’s veins, and he felt that mental click of what he was about to do.

Choice made, decisive action. Robbie walked over to him and grabbed Bob’s thighs and slid him straight against him into a kiss. Bob pawed at Robbie’s back and hugged him closer. The intensity growing with each passing moment, and one long lunging kiss had Robbie knocking Bob’s head into the mirror behind him.

They broke apart.

“Shit,” Bob laughed and brushed at his hair.

Robbie licked Bob’s ear and tugged at his shirt and said, “I wanna fuck you, Bobby, right against the counter. I wanna fuck you hard.”

Bob blinked, already out of breath by the suggestion. He finally answered with, “I locked the door when I came in.”

“C’mere,” Robbie slid Bob off the countertop and stripped him of his jeans, just had to pull them down by the back pockets. The snap of designer underwear elastic as Robbie moved it out of the way.

Robbie grabbed some lube out of the bathroom and coated his fingers.

“I’d ask why they had that back here but…” and Bob shook away the thought.

Robbie bent him over and kept his eyes focused on Bob’s reflection. He wasn’t sure if Bob was enjoying or merely tolerating the early exploration, his eyes only occasionally met Robbie’s in the mirror, eyes busy falling away in their own dark storm. And then he pushed inside him driving in that first pulse of rhythm, and Bob let out a sound that spoke to some hidden depth of ravenous desire and untapped pleasure.

Robbie kept it up, grinding into him, finding that spot that made Bob hum and moan and curse and cry out, with his fingernails scraping the cheap laminate countertop and his head held back to watch the show, Robbie’s hand wrenched into Bob’s hair. The other hand around Bob’s hip, the bone starting its harsh protrusion again.

He was inside him, he was all around him, the shock of every motion vibrant and thick. Bob’s legs shaking back against his. He reached forward to remind himself of Bob’s cock, releasing it from the last vestiges of his underwear and feeling how solid it was. Long and lean and wet.

Bob let out a keening whimper, the sound vibrated through Robbie. The walls and the floor fading around them. All there was was each other.

Every iota of Bob was intense. The way his body reacted, enacted, adapted with change. How any initial discomfort dissolved and morphed into part of Robbie’s pleasure.

It reminded Robbie of moments onstage infuriating to Levon and the others: how Bob would move during one of Robbie’s solos, to the untrained eye they might have thought Bob was performing it and the lack of structure, presentation let a trick like that through when really, really Bob wasn’t laying claim to anything—he was living, breathing, becoming the things around him.

Bob slumped against Robbie, his forearms slipping off the countertop. A hard clap of Robbie’s hand against the front of Bob’s thigh, Bob’s cock bouncing free. Robbie switched his grip from the back of Bob’s head to his exposed neck. Squeezing the cords of Bob’s neck like a Fender near the end of its life. He squeezed harder, Bob didn’t make a sound.

“I could come just like this,” Robbie kept his voice low without angling for a whisper. “Want me to come inside you?”

“Uh,” Bob licked his lips. “I’d like to see you if I could. To face you.”

Robbie pulled out and gave a quick glance to the room as the details shifted back into focus around them. “The couch,” he instructed and Bob got onto it, losing the remainder of his clothes in the process.

It didn’t occur to Robbie until much, much later that Bob had been fully exposed, stripped by choice to wiry veins and advancing bones and the only thing Robbie truly took off were his shoes.

Robbie mounted him and started the rhythm back up, locked in on Bob. His skin warm and slicked with sweat. Bob’s hands and blistered grip changing every few seconds from Robbie’s hair to his chest to sweeping down his clothes. Across eyebrows, over lips, curling round his ear. Like there wasn’t anything he could do to make this physical act cross over into his reality. But god, how he tried.

Robbie angled his hips and Bob’s so he could hit that bell on the top of the test your strength tower. So he could hear Bob scream out and writhe underneath him and beg for more.

And he did exactly that. The man who was seen as the biggest mystery in music wasn’t so hard to figure out.

“Please,” was his refrain through cracked, chapped lips, and the voices Bob fed it through were vast, unashamed.

“You feel so good,” Robbie stuck his tongue down Bob’s throat and Bob sucked on it with a weak moan. There was a taste to him he couldn’t put it together before but then he got it. Vomit and cheap mouthwash.

They were in too deep and Robbie couldn’t save him anymore. Or maybe, he thought, he could and the urge was gone. He could but didn’t want to. He pushed into him harder, kissed him harder, like that would make it up to him.

When Robbie came up for air, Bob warned. “I’m gonna come quick, I can’t hold out much longer.”

“Then you’re gonna get every inch,” and Robbie slammed into him and Bob cried out with a starved sort of grunt and his hot, sticky come spurted up Robbie’s chest and shirt.

Robbie sped up, listening through the quiet, sated exhaustion and catching Bob’s whisper as he drew a line down Robbie’s arm.

“You’re my only love, please don’t—"

And there might have been more but Robbie cried out coming inside Bob and filling him up.

They stayed like that for a while, fully drowned in their passion. Bob nibbled on the salty sweat on Robbie’s neck and jaw. Robbie combed his fingers through every tangle in Bob’s curls.

A harsh knock at the door. “Robbie, you in there?”

Who was that, Rich? Garth? He couldn’t tell anymore.

“You can hide all you like, they’ll always find you,” Bob whispered with a quiet giggle.

Robbie cleared his throat, “Uh, yeah. I was taking a shower, I’ll be out in five minutes.”

The knocker moved on, but the real world and all its noise came back just the same. Best move along. The air was cold, but it felt fresh.

Robbie got up and checked himself in the mirror as Bob rolled off the couch, flipped the cushions, and gathered his clothes. There was a damp stain up the front of Robbie’s shirt of undeniable origin. Robbie took it off.

“Sorry about your shirt,” Bob said, all too focused on the buttons on his own shirt. His ribs looked dented from the activity alone.

“It’s cool,” Robbie balled it up and tossed it in the trash. Later if anyone asked he would say someone stole it.

“Don’t throw it out, the Smithsonian will want it.” Bob laughed.

“I don’t want the Smithsonian to know my business.” he hooked an arm around Bob. “You doing all right?”

Bob wouldn’t make eye contact but he seemed to still be caught in some realm of awe. Something so overwhelming he was still trying to comprehend it. He finally said, “No one told me it felt like that.”

Robbie nudged him. “Who’d you ask, Allen Ginsburg?”

“Ohohoho go fuck yourself.” Bob broke away.

Robbie finished pulling himself together. It didn’t take too long at all.

“I guess the thing that gets me is this could be every day for us,” Bob took his hat off the door and stuck it back on his head, straightening it with the quickest glance at the mirror. “Woodstock, LA, New York, music. That coffee you make that tastes so good.”

“Uhuh,” Robbie went for the door and unlocked it.

And in that moment, just in getting the door open again, Robbie realized that what Bob was saying wasn’t anything he was looking for. He didn’t want it, just like he didn’t want the shirt to be found out. He wanted Bob to play for the farewell, and he didn’t regret the rest happening, and it felt great, amazing, whole and right but it managed to solidify that Bob was part of the past and he had to let him go.

Bob was right to be so cautious. For all the known risk, for all that Robbie had been warned, it was Bob who’d gotten tangled up in him.

“I should go, people are waiting for me,” Robbie hovered in the open door, edging his feet away.

And Bob got it too as a hint of ice (or was it water?) got in his eyes and he pressed his hand to his ribs like he was trying to remember where he kept his breath and he said, “Too many, Jaime. Too many.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew okay, got that out of my system. Hey the title was from Dylan's adjusted lyric whilst singing Hazel during The Last Waltz. Thanks for viewing these insane ramblings!

**Author's Note:**

> Oof okay, so I'm gonna try to knock this out quick. I was working on another project and once that finished up I literally couldn't move on and there was a lot of Dylan floating around in my head and that wouldn't leave either, so I figured if I just pounded this out MAYBE it'd go away and I could go back to living my life. We'll see if it works.


End file.
